Saturday, 13 November 2010

One of the most important things for a bipolar person is to control stress while earning money. It took me about a year to enter a job again and start taking my own responsibility and together with this there was a significant amount of stress.

When we are bipolar it is very important to control your stress levels because stress for us is higher than in most individuals. After suffering from psychosis or a nervous-breakdown or whatever you want to call it, we have to eventually face up to our responsibilities.

What I have seen in myself and my other bipolar friends is that we need a job and while working we need to take breaks once in a while and not work too much.

We have to create limits for ourselves as to what we can and can't do. The theory goes that bipolar people can be successful and after two years of medication I feel that things really do seem to be getting better.

In my article Mental Handicap= a gateway to paradise I found that taking medication was a handicap. But I realised after psychosis and later hospitalisation that taking medication does actually make you better. Without our medication as Kay Redfield Jamison describes in her book Touched with Fire we will perish by the age of 35 if we don't take the medication prescribed to us.

So if you are bipolar in order live a healthy life: work (but don't work too hard), take your medication and keep up your own responsibilities. Basically look after your mental (i.e take holidays) and physical health as best you can. Bipolars are mostly overachievers and therefore it is important to balance your own moods when necessary.